AbstractWe address the problem of the energy conditions in modified gravity taking into account the additional degrees of freedom related to scalar fields and curvature invariants. The latter are usually interpreted as generalized geometrical fluids that differ in meaning with respect to the matter fluids generally considered as sources of the field equations. In extended gravity theories the curvature terms are encapsulated in a tensor Hab and a coupling g(Ψi) that can be recast as effective Einstein field equations, with corrections to the energy-momentum tensor of matter. The formal validity of standard energy inequalities does not assure basic requirements such as the attractive nature of gravity, so we argue that the energy conditions have to be considered in a wider sense.